NONFICTION
Research Papers, Essays, etc.
DREAMS OF PERFECTION:AN INVESTIGATION OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PERSONAL
FAILURE AND PESSIMISM IN COLLEGE STUDENTS
The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between personal failure, attributional styles, and outlook on society in college students. The proposed hypotheses were that the experience of personal failure would
encourage more pessimistic thinking about the future of society, and that optimistic individuals would be more affected by feelings of personal failure than pessimists. The results of the experiment did not confirm either hypothesis, but showed that pessimistic people are more affected by personal failure than optimistic people are even though there was no significant difference between outlook on society when only taking the experience of personal failure into account.
A suggestion for further research would be to design a more appropriate task to manipulate feelings of personal failure that is relevant to both the participants and the research topic, while keeping in mind possible ethical limitations of using deception to manipulate feelings of personal failure in individuals. The information obtained in this study and further studies can be used to support the argument for earlier intervention in schools to discourage the increasing fear of failure that college students have that increases their stress levels. By eliminating the fear of failure, college students may become more resilient in the face of personal failure and rather than become discouraged about the future of society and refuse to take an active role in bettering it, the students will only work harder to ensure that their society is headed in the right direction.
FACTORS BEHIND REDUCED RATES OF RELIABILITY IN FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSESSMENTS VERSUS NON-FORENSIC CLINICAL ASSESSMENTS
The most significant distinction between forensic psychology and the larger field of psychology in general is the space in which forensic psychology acts. Working at the intersection between psychology and the law, forensic psychology mitigates the interactions between mental health and the legal system. It is important to note that forensic psychologists are clinical psychologists as well, and not a unique hybrid between clinician and legal official. Despite this, there are differences in how professionals operate depending on whether they are acting as a forensic or non-forensic clinician. One of these differences is the way they approach evaluations of clients and defendants...
THE FALL OF COMMUNISM
While many historians place the blame for the fall of Communism on Mikhail Gorbachev’s failed reforms, it should be understood that Gorbachev inherited a failing system when he rose to power in 1985. His reforms were an effort to save a government that was already on its way to ruination. Communism in the Soviet Union was doomed from its conception. Because of its shortcomings, discontent spread among the populous, and this discontent fuelled mass strikes and demonstrations against the government that gradually eroded its power over time. Gorbachev’s failed reforms were the final nail in the coffin for Communism and for the Soviet Union, but had it not been for the flawed structure of Communism itself and the already existent opposition, Gorbachev’s actions might not have had such devastating effects...
REALITY ACCORDING TO DEMOCRITUS' ATOMISM THEORY
As much time that Democritus spent explaning how reality exists, he also had ideas about human perception of it. Democritus believed that human perception of the world was unreal. That is to say the only true reality was the atoms themselves, and what we make of them is not objectively real. According to Sextus Empiricus, Democritus said “we in fact understand nothing exactly”. According to Democritus, all human senses are of illegitimate judgment, and that things like hot, cold, and colour exist by convention, when the only true reality is atoms and void. A possible counterargument to this is that without humans perceiving the things that atoms make up, there is no reality and therefore reality relies on human perception. However, perception is subjective and as proven with simple optical illusions what humans perceive is not always what is truly there...